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What Columbia and Snake River 

 WUd Salmon Really Need 



PACIFIC NORTHWEST 

 WILD SALMON CAMPAIGN 



Northwest Office 



1516 Melrose Ave. 

 Seattle WA 98122 

 (206)621-1696 



Columbia Basin Field OfTice 



Route 2, Bon 303-A 

 Pullman WA 99163 

 (509)332-5173 



WHAT THE BALD EAGLE is 

 to the nation, wild salmon 

 are to the Pacific Northwest. But 

 tragically this noble symbol of our 

 region is slipping to the brink of 

 extinction. The American Fisher- 

 ies Society counts more than 200 

 stocks of wild salmon, steelhead 

 £ind ocean-migrating trout as en- 

 dangered, threatened, or at risk 

 in the Northwest. 



Before the era of big hydro- 

 power development began in the 

 Depression with the erection of 

 Bonneville Dam, the greatest 

 salmon watershed on the entire 

 Pacific Ocean — the Columbia 

 River Basin — annually saw 16 

 million adults enter the river 

 headed for spawning beds as far 

 upstream as Canada 

 and central Idaho. 

 Today the number 

 has slipped to some 2 

 million fish. Of these, 

 at best 300,000 are 

 wild salmon; the rest 

 are hatchery stocks. 

 With the decline of 

 salmon, we lose more 

 than a regional sym- 

 bol and suffer more 

 than another erosion 

 of environmental 

 quality. The demise 

 of salmon runs is a 

 doilars-and-cents loss 

 as well when an en- 

 tire regional fishing 

 industry is at risk, 

 including commercial 

 operations which, in 

 many cases, have 

 been passed down for genera- 

 tions. Even with the severe de- 



clines, salmon net the regional 

 economy some 60,000 jobs di- 

 rectly and $1 billion annually in 

 income. This ia a vital economic 

 base for many communities 

 throughout the Northwest, and 

 could be a much stronger one if 

 salmon runs are healthy and pro- 

 ductive. 



Wild salmon populations have 

 fallen especially sharply in the 

 Snake River Basin Starting in 

 December 1991, the National Ma- 

 rine Fisheries Service (NMFS) 

 listed wild Snake River sockeye, 

 spring, summer, and fall chinook 

 salmon for protection under the 

 Endangered Species Act. In 1991, 

 only four adult sockeye salmon 

 returned to spawn in Idaho; only 

 one came back in 1992. Coho 

 salmon in the Snake were offi- 

 cially declared extinct in 1985. 



Why are wild salmon vanish- 

 ing? Wild fish die from a number 

 of causes: blockage of river migra- 

 tion, over-harvesting, loss of habi- 

 tat, excessive reliance on hatcher- 

 ies, and more. However, in the 

 Snake and Columbia Rivers, the 

 number one killer is hydroelectric 

 development. 



Dams fatally tdter 

 journey to eea for tiny 

 salmon fingerlings 



BETWEEN 1931 AND 1974, the 

 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 

 built eight huge mainstem dams 

 — four on the lower Snake River 

 and four on the lower Columbia 

 — without any way to provide safe 

 passage for migrating juvenile 

 salmon. Ladders were installed 



The Sierra Club Wild Salmon Campaign jcdu lo protect and restore wild salmon runs Ihrougbout the Pacific Northwesl. What Columbia 

 and Siuke River Wild Salmon Really Need is one of a series of Siena Club discussion papers on rcsloralJon of wild salmon. Written by 

 Jim Baker, Siena Club Columbia Basin Field Office and Julia Reitan. Sierra Club Nonhwesi Office: with editorial assistance by Loiri 

 Bodi and Kalberine Ransell, American Riven Nortbwesl; Tun Steams and Pat Ford, S.O.S. Save Our Wild Salmon; with funding from the 

 Bullitt FkMindallon. O Copyright Sierra Club, January 1993. Printed on recycled paper. ^ 4^~ 



